Russia has denied any troop build-up on the Ukraine border, a claim voiced by President Barack Obama and Kiev officials. Moscow slammed the West for ignoring the results of recent fact-finding missions for the sake of political expediency.

On Friday Obama urged Russia to pull back “a range of
troops,” which he said, “we have seen […] massing along
that border under the guise of military exercises."

"But these are not what Russia would normally be doing,"
Obama said, speaking with CBS on his trip to Rome.

He then suggested that the troop build-up could be “just an
effort to intimidate Ukraine.”

"It may be that they've got additional plans," Obama
said.

The US president’s comments came the day after a Ukrainian
security official told Executive Vice President of the
US-Atlantic Council Damon Wilson that “almost 100,000
soldiers are stationed on the borders of Ukraine and in the
direction ... of Kharkov, Donetsk.”

"Russian troops are not only in Crimea, they are along all
Ukrainian borders. They're in the south, they're in the east and
in the north," Andrey Parubiy, one of the so-called Maidan
“commandants” who has been appointed chairman of
Ukraine's Security Council, told the Atlantic Council during a
web conference Thursday.

Parubiy expressed his worry that continental Ukraine might
“see a huge attack” on its territory.

“We are getting ready for it," he said.

In the past few days, Western media has extensively reported that
Russia is positioning its troops in Crimea and along the
Ukrainian border. Some of the major news outlets speculated that
Russian troops “appeared to be concealing their positions,
trying to cloak their equipment, and establishing supply
lines.”

Responding to those accusations, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued
a statement, in which it recalled four probes in March by foreign
missions in Russia of regions bordering Ukraine.

The ministry said that “even Ukrainian inspectors”
agreed that “there were no major military activities being
carried out.”

The four international missions included representatives of
Latvia, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Belgium, France
and Ukraine. None of the missions “found ‘aggressive
preparations’ and have not recorded any military activities,
aside from the previously declared,” the statement said.

“Opportunities to conduct such activities were provided to
all those who wished to get acquainted with the real situation in
the border with Ukraine regions,” the ministry said.

The statement emphasized that “even Ukrainian
inspectors” agreed that “there were no major military
activities being carried out.”

“The result of this was the official reports submitted to all
OSCE member states. The objective information contained in those
reports, in our view, should have become a subject of an
impartial analysis and basis for further conclusions,” the
statement said.

This, however, is not the case here, the ministry said.

As another proof that there are no additional Russian troops and
active military preparations, the Foreign Ministry referred to
recent observation flights by American and German
inspectors.

“The official results of those flights will be known later,
after the processing of photographic materials. However, one can
assume that if signs of large concentration of the armed forces
were spotted from the air, our partners would not wait to present
the ‘evidence’. Hence, it simply does not exist,” the
ministry said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry also questioned the objectivity of
Western politicians.

"Is objective information collected by military inspectors
not provided to the political leadership [of Western countries]?
Or are these leaders, yielding to their emotions, inclined to
ignore the facts in order to satisfy their own political tastes
and preferences?" the ministry said.